By Beaven Tapureta
Local fledgling and experienced filmmakers now have an opportunity to showcase their works in progress and get helpful criticism from various quarters of the community at the Wednesday Film Club in Harare. The Wednesday Film Club, running every week in the evening under the auspices of Pamberi Trust, has proved the best place to be for filmmakers. The open discussion or feedback after the film-screening is the gist of this initiative.The hunger for exposure has seen new filmmakers screening their finished productions at various street corners in the city centre.
In the early evenings the new movie makers are seen showing snippets while their crews sell CDs or DVDs to the shuffling audience. Even those who have established names for themselves like the producers of the action-packed local movie “Go-Chanaiwa-Go” (TV-Studios) have made use of the street platforms.
However, the local movie makers now have a chance to get useful feedback and wide networks at Wednesday Film Club.
Last week, the Wednesday Film Club, usually held at the Pamberi Trust Garden, screened Fungai Makoni’s second film called “Pawn” which traces the life of a boy child named Sean who was born after his mother was raped. The film is set in Harare.
Sean, a gifted artist, grows but finds himself entangled in a confusing life orchestrated by his drug-dealing ‘father’ who is wanted by the police. Sean is the pawn! The film, however, shares its title with a 2013 American film directed by David A Armstrong. Again, aren’t titles of films open to criticism?
The discussion that followed the screening certainly gave the promising filmmaker some indicators to certain aspects of his film that needed amendment. The film “Pawn”, Makoni said, is still work in progress and the critique on Wednesday offered room for bringing forth an excellent work.
In an interview, Rudo Chakanyuka of Pamberi Trust said the club’s main purpose is to provide a platform for interaction and confidence building among budding filmmakers.
“The club is very popular with local filmmakers because they would have a chance to interact with other experienced filmmakers and a ‘test’ audience of actors/actresses, including ordinary members of the community. It has become a skill-sharpening platform hinged on producing high quality films,” she said.
The Film Club used to gather at the defunct Book Café and its return should be good news to filmmakers.
The club has seen individuals and organisations such as the American and Spanish embassies and the Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe contributing with their own and festival films and sometimes conducting competitions.
In Zimbabwe, there are a few institutions that train filmmakers. Technical resources and funding has hampered the growth of the local film industry which sometimes is referred to as “Zollywood”, a film movement similar to Nigeria’s “Nollywood”.
Asked if there are local institutions training the actual art of film making, Chakanyuka said she is glad there has been talk at certain universities and polytechnic about balancing theory and practice within those learning film.
“There need to be a balance between theory and practical work. Development platforms such as our Wednesday Film Club help film learners to produce high quality works after graduation. Where these platforms lack, the level of competence of these graduates will not be up to standard and hence the continuation of negative attitude towards Zim-made films,” Chakanyuka said.
While the club mainly benefits film makers, scriptwriters are however included since many of the new film productions are what Chakanyuka called ‘one-man-shows’, a situation currently seen in the film industry where the same person is the scriptwriter, director and producer.
A good example is the movie “S’mbimbino” which was written, produced and directed by Von Tavaziva. Makoni also said he does much of the work on his movie “Pawn”.
Chakanyuka said these ‘one-man-show’ are bound to make mistakes and therefore some kind of networking and merging of skills is needed in a single film product.
With all the digital equipment now easily accessible, she said the local film industry will be poised for growth if only the quality of our stories is improved. “We have the stories but it is how we tell them that counts. We don’t want to have a good story and yet not the best picture or sound quality,” said Chakanyuka.
Leave a Reply